Pubdate: Mon, 01 Feb 2016
Source: Trentonian, The (NJ)
Column: Passing the Joint
Copyright: 2016 The Trentonian
Contact:  http://www.trentonian.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1006
Author: Ed Forchion, NJWeedman.com For The Trentonian

I WANT TO TAKE OVER THE FEDERAL COURTHOUSE IN TRENTON

I'm passing a joint at The Joint and pondering while on pot. Through 
hazy eyes I watched FoxNews coverage of the armed takeover of a 
federal building in Oregon, feeling helpless.

I've decided to do something about it here in Trenton.

I think I'm going to take over the front steps of the Clarkson S. 
Fisher Federal Building and United States Courthouse located on the 
next block from The Joint on State Street. Ummm next week or the week 
after, hum, or when I get off this couch. (In my "Jay and Silent Bob" 
voice:) Dude... not in solidary with those fools in Oregon, but just 
the opposite.

Puff, Puff-I wonder if our takeover would garner national exposure?

I'm positive if I hold a bong (instead of a rifle) while having a 
press conference with Twinkies, blowing a little smoke about a Reefer 
Revolution and refusing to leave like those fools in Oregon, someone 
would notice... or not? I think I'd make the local press at least; 
maybe if I gave away Gov. Chris Christie Burgers some presidential 
press might bite. Perhaps TMZ would pick up on my declarations that I 
intend to stay here smoking this weed until Obama makes marijuana legal?

Psych-its 4.20pm, I'm not doing that. I'm just being facetious to 
demonstrate what it sounds like to be flippant with a subject.

That's for Chris Goldstein  who was outraged that 
another journalist, Kathleen Hopkins of the Asbury Park Press, loaded 
a story about John Peditto's sentencing with intentional marijuana 
"puns." Chris wrote: "This is as serious as it gets. A man's liberty 
is on the line for growing some nontoxic, non-lethal plants.

If Peditto lived in Washington, DC, he could have cultivated a 
six-plant cannabis garden and it would be perfectly legal." I 
absolutely do agree with Chris that it's a serious issue, but I've 
also gotten a lot of pun-loaded press over the years.

When I went to prison the headline was "NJWEEDMAN Up in Smoke," but I 
wasn't offended.

I come from the mind-set of any press is good press, so I'm glad 
John's case is turning into a cause celebre for cannabis, and if 
pun-loaded press coverage occurs, great.

The usage of such a device in writing is not necessarily equatable 
with disparagement of the subject matter.

(Google John Peditto.) John is a nonviolent 54-year-old father and 
first-time offender, and because of foolish jurors he's facing a 
mandatory minimum of 10 years in NJ state prison for growing 17 
marijuana plants in the woods and maintaining a "manufacturing 
facility" (his home had fertilizers, soil, and gardening tools). In 
this day and age, I didn't think a jury would convict a clean-cut 
middleaged white guy, and neither did John. He tried to use the 
defense that the law was wrong, not him, hoping his jurors would 
nullify the law and say "not guilty." Instead, his jurors were fat 
government-fed idiots who I personally heard laughing in the jury 
room moments after condemning John to a cage for over a decade-for a plant.

I'm forever grateful to my October 18, 2012, jury that found me not 
guilty when I was in fact guilty of violating the state's asinine 
marijuana laws. Had they found me guilty, I'd still be in state 
prison, and with the Brummage Act provisions, I'd have been condemned 
to at least 6 years of a 10-year sentence.

Now I'm hoping one of my jurors will come to my Joint and smoke a 
joint with me.

IMPORTANT NOTE: John's sentencing date has been changed once again. 
It's now January 29, 2016, at the Ocean County Courthouse (120 Hooper 
Ave., Toms River).

Puff, puff. Now seriously, back to these TERRORISTS in Oregon.

I don't consider people who do peaceful protests such as die-ins to 
be terrorists. I don't even consider the actions of the Black 
Panthers in the 1960s terroristic. They lawfully held weapons and 
insisted that the Constitution applied to Black people too.

For the last 30 days, Ammon Bundy, the son of Clive Bundy-a radical 
racist with a history of threatening the Obama Administration-led an 
armed group in taking over a federal government building in the 
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon. This isn't 
comparable to #blacklivesmatter protesters who've peacefully refused 
to leave government offices and were willing to be arrested, or 
peaceful citizens who do die-ins and refuse to move as a form of 
nonviolent protest.

This group of nut-job white-supremacist conspiracy fools, these armed 
domestic terrorists, are different. They threaten violence, which is 
a whole different game, and now they are holed up begging for 
provisions to be sent while vowing to shoot it out with law 
enforcement authorities should they attempt to retake the building.

And they fraudulently call themselves patriots.

That's apparently what happened with one of the group's leaders as 
LaVoy Finicum was stopped by police on a trip to a local town meeting 
when he reportedly charged at police and reached for a gun from 
inside his coat.

I consider myself a peaceful, proud, patriotic pothead, and I'm 
pondering why the local FBI branch doesn't get our building back from 
these terrorists. They must be removed ASAP so they don't inspire others.

I've never rooted for the government to actually shoot it out with 
citizens, but that's what I'm hoping happens sooner rather than later 
in Oregon. For instance, when the Philadelphia Police were ordered by 
Mayor Goode to bomb the MOVE house on Osage Avenue in 1985, I watched 
in horror as 11 citizens were murdered, burned to death. (Yes, there 
were arms in the building.) To me Mayor Goode would forever be Mayor 
Evil Bastard. Likewise, when the ATF assaulted the Branch Davidians 
in Waco, Texas, I felt they unjustly murdered those 82 people (women/ 
kids) and should have waited them out. More recently, as I watch 
police murders across the country captured on phone cameras I 
constantly find myself saying, "Why didn't the police just wait them 
out?" Most of those police murders could have been averted if only 
the situation were given some time.

The exception to my sentiment is the Nevada Bundy Ranch standoff of 
April 2014. In that instance the government waited them out-why? I 
don't know, but eventually they declined to do anything and as a 
result some of its members were emboldened, as we now see again in 
Oregon. I don't look at the Bundy bunch as anything other than a 
group of domestic terrorists. They aren't comparable to ISIS, the 
IRA, or even the KKK, but some websites have been calling them 
Yallqaeda, which I think is funny and appropriate.

On June 8, 2014, after the federal government declined to end the 
standoff at the Bundy ranch, two of those fools who were emboldened 
by the lack of action, Jerad and Amanda Miller, declared, "This is 
the beginning of the revolution," by writing it on a paper pinned to 
one of the two Las Vegas police officers they murdered (along with a 
civilian) as they invaded and shot up a Walmart. They both died 
starting their Redneck Revolution, and now some of their brethren 
have taken up arms-(insurrection) in Oregon.

In my opinion, had the authorities ended the Bundy ranch standoff 
those three people would at least still be alive (maybe the Millers 
would've died at the ranch), but this standoff in Oregon wouldn't be 
happening either.

That's all speculation now, but Jerad Miller at the time was seen on 
CNN and FoxNews saying, "I feel sorry for any federal agents that 
want to come in here and try to push us around or anything like that. 
I really don't want violence toward them, but if they're going to 
come bring violence to us, well, if that's the language they want to 
speak, we'll learn it." Instead, he cowardly killed two officers 
while they ate lunch.

So it's ominous to hear these same Nevada fools in Oregon saying, 
"Nobody wants anything bad to happen on any side." (Young A  le) 
Bundy had issued a list of demands and says his followers will not 
give in until the demands are met. "We're planning on staying here 
for years, absolutely. This is not a decision we've made at the last 
minute." Their YouTube rants are more threats and pleadings for 
supplies. Someone sent them dildos and these idiots posted a photo of 
them online.

Which made me think back to "any coverage is good coverage." I just 
mailed them some joints along with fliers for my business.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom